White Paper

Abstract

This paper presents ideas and possibilities for using Twelve Stories of Russia: A novel, I guess as a free resource to support foreign-language learners and emerging students of translation. The project makes use of the book's unique subject matter and special relevance for language students and instructors to create an engaging, authentic, and useful resource for learning English. While appropriate for English-language learners from all cultures, the materials will be particularly topical for students in Russia and/or those who have experience living in Russian-speaking environments.

Introduction

While there is no shortage of materials to support the study of English in Russia, a common problem for those wishing to incorporate literature into their plans has been curating a reliable corpus of authentic native-language texts that are engaging, topical, and easily accessible. Challenges include issues of content and level appropriateness, as well as barriers to accessibility caused by cost, copyright, and general supply/availability of the desired texts to be used.

As a novel about teaching and learning language in a foreign setting, Twelve Stories of Russia: A novel, I guess is a literary work with language discovery at its core, and for this reason it is perhaps uniquely suited for this purpose. Thoughtfully introduced into a program of guided reading, the novel can be used to assist second-language learners of English. The current project proposes to support this goal by providing unrestricted access to the novel, along with customizable materials to support teaching and learning from the text.

The project also seeks to harness the power of the wiki platform (mediawiki) so that students may use the text interactively and dynamically to improve their reading and translating skills. Teachers are encouraged to use these texts as needed and to customize the materials in any way that supports their lesson planning and furthers their instructional goals.

Background

Literature as a resource for teaching English

For a student of English, reading an authentic literary work in its original form can be an exciting and formative step in the acquisition of their new language. By combining the joy of recreational reading with the satisfaction that comes from gradually discovering a previously impenetrable text, a guided program of literary reading can provide a powerful way to improve proficiency in a second language.

Teachers who work with literary texts will recognize these benefits, but are also likely to face many challenges when trying to choose the right materials for their students. Not only must they seek examples that are relevant in terms of subject matter, age appropriateness and learner level, but they must also find formats that are accessible and convenient for students to use.

The challenge thus becomes finding an appropriate body of literary works that are engaging, relevant, and accessible to both the student and the instructor.

Using Twelve Stories to teach English

While being a literary work in its own right, Twelve Stories of Russia: A novel, I guess also offers specific thematic and stylistic features that can be harnessed to assist second-language learners in studying and learning English.

According to its author, an English teacher who wrote the book while living in Moscow, Twelve Stories was first envisioned as a "self-teaching" text that his students could read and, while enjoying its plot and story, gradually learn the fundamentals of English syntax and vocabulary. The novel's subject matter and themes (Russia, America, learning a foreign language, cultural differences), are designed to resonate with students in Russia, and the book's structure is conceived to gradually introduce an unfamiliar reader to the text. In its earliest passages the narrative uses a simple structure with short chapter sections and compact sentences that can be easily absorbed; its structure then grows more expansive and complex in later chapters once the student/reader has become familiar with the novel's conventions. Another useful stylistic feature is the frequent repetition of words within scenes and across scenes, which reinforces vocabulary and rewards the student's persistence. By its final sections the story has become free-flowing with a greater range and diversity of vocabulary, longer chapter sections, a greater number of characters, more intersecting plot lines, and an increased use of resonance and referencing: as with the narrator's search for meaning, the short measured steps of the story's beginning have become the confident strides of the mature story - also mirroring the increased fluency of thought and speech that comes with language acquisition itself.

Other features of Twelve Stories that make it an opportune text for English learners in Russia include:

• Subject matter that is highly relevant for Russian-language students, e.g.:
  • The narrator is simultaneously learning Russian and teaching English and there is much in his struggles that multi-lingual readers will find relatable.
  • Many scenes depict the narrator's attempts to understand or explain grammatical concepts that the readers may be struggling with: high vs. tall, articles, past vs. present tense, etc.
  • Some scenes are devoted to the "differences" between English and Russian vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, humor, which can make for interesting discussions among students familiar with both.
• Copious dialogue to illustrate many frequently occurring peculiarities of casual speech.
• An organizational concept (e.g., Book 1, Section 1) that makes it easy to reference specific passages even if students have different editions of the book.
• Short scenes within chapters that make it easy for instructors to organize lessons around specific thematic or grammatical topics.
• A focus on real-world, contemporary US English, as spoken by its American (and Russian!) characters.

Using the Wiki platform as a teaching tool

The key advantages of a wiki approach are its decentralized structure and the ability of individual users to customize their experience. This means that instructors can adapt the materials presented here to fit their own teaching methods, lesson plans, etc. Examples of the flexibility provided by the Wiki format include:

1. Teachers can assign a single section to multiple students to read and/or translate as a group; the results will be stored on the server and can be reviewed and evaluated by the instructor, or other participants, as desired.
2. Sections can be assigned to specific students to read or translate individually
3. The Discussion page can be used to record students' thoughts and process while grappling with a text; it can also be used to track the evolution of an individual's, or group's, translation.
4. The "Compare Revisions" feature can be used to track the progress of a translation and the specific choices that were made along the way; the revert function can be used to return to an earlier version at any point.
5. Once created and refined, assignments and lessons can be copied for use with new classes.
6. An instructor can give different privileges (e.g., edit, read-only, etc.) to different participants for a given assignment.
7. Using the provided PDF to assign lessons to students.
8. The platform is highly customizable and there are many other ways that a user can add more functions and/or options.

How it works

For readers

Readers in Russia who wish to read Twelve Stories of Russia may download it to use at their discretion. According to the author's wishes, the PDF has been made available for unlimited sharing for personal and educational purposes.

For students

Students in Russia are welcome to use the resources on this wiki resource to learn and further their English in any way they want. Ideas for this are presented below.

Studying English

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Studying Translation

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For teachers

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Teaching English

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Teaching Translation

Some ways that this project can be used to teach translation include:

1. Assigning a single section to multiple students to work on as a group
2. Assigning individual sections to specific students to translate individually
3. Using previously translated sections to evaluate the choices made, with an eye to revisions the students would make
4. Copying assignments and creating new classes moderated by the teacher
5. Using the provided PDF to assign lessons to students
6. Using the Discussion page to compare students' thoughts and record the reasoning behind specific translation choices; using the Discussion page to track the evolution of a solution to a specific translation problem.
7. Using the "Compare Revisions" feature to track the progress of a translation and the specific choices that were made; use the revert function to revert to an earlier version if so desired

Working with wiki documents

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Ideas and future possibilities

About Twelve Stories

Twelve Stories of Russia: A novel, I guess was published in 2001 by the independent publisher Glas and acquired a cult status..... Unique in appealing to both sides..... The book was republished in 2017.

Can Twelve Stories be translated?

The author of Twelve Stories, in several interviews conducted in Russian after the book's release, has stated that he specifically wrote the book to be difficult to translate into Russian; that he wrote it to be used by his students to learn English as they read it; that he believes it to be untranslatable into English; and that he will never consent to an official translation of the book into Russian. (The book has been translated into French.)

In May 2022, Cow Eye Press received special permission from its author to make the full version of Twelve Stories available to readers in Russia as a free PDF. The author has also given his blessing to using the book as part of this project for "anything that helps people in Russia."

Conclusion

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Quick Link References

• On Using Twelve Stories of Russia as a Teaching Resource for Students of English and Translation Arts (White paper)

• [https://www.coweyepress.com/wiki/index.php/Twelve_Stories_of_Russia:_Translation_Arts_Project Translation Arts home page

Teaching Materials

• How to use these materials
• Sample lesson plan (template)
• Lessons by theme
• Lessons by grammatical topic
• Lessons by learner level
• Lessons by plot line

Technical and formatting support

Consult the User's Guide for information on using the wiki software.